Analysis of a #SocialGood campaign: how can we better use social media for social good?

Yesterday was (RED) and Mashable's Social Good Day, a day when social media enthusiasts around the world are encouraged to collaborate and come up with ideas on using social media to promote social good. As a blogger and social media consultant, I gave it my best to come up with and share a creative idea for using social media for social good. What I came up with was to post about Social Good Day on my Greater Good Life blog and offer to donate $1 to the Global Fund (up to $100 total) for everytime the blog entry recieved a comment or a post on Twitter or Facebook. The goal of the campaign was to spread the word out about (Red) and Social Good Day.

EVALUATION RESEARCH

Every good social media campaign should end with evaluation research: What were the measurable results? Did the campaign acheive its goal? What are the key learnings from the campaign that would improve future campaigns?

Measurable results 

For larger campaigns, I would tally the results using a service like Radian 6, but I'm approaching this small scale campaign the way my small business clients would, manually counting comments, mentions and posts. By 10:30pm on Social Good Day, 12 hours after the campaign started, my blog post received:   

• 8 comments
• 20 tweets with @replies
• 25 retweets
• 5 shared facebook posts (probably more, but this was harder to track)
• 89 likes and 56 comments on the (RED) facebook page (showing their support, they posted about my campaign). 

The social good blog post received about 100 more unique visitors than a typical blog post would in the first 12 hours as well. The post received 56 referrals from Facebook in addition to 30 referrals directly from (RED)'s facebook page.

That's what I could quickly hand count, I'm sure I missed a few posts. Comments and referrals are still coming in, but it's safe to say I'll be donating $100 to the Global Fund!

Was the campaign's goal achieved?

The goal of the campaign was to spread the word about (Red) and Social Good Day. While the $100 donation affords a lot of HIV/AIDs medication for patients in Africa, I could have donated that on my own without a campaign. The important result was that there were at least 100 posts about (Red) in the social media sphere because of my blog post. A hundred social media users shared information about (Red) and Social Good Day with their thousands of friends and followers! I consider the goal acheived!

What can be learned from this campaign about using social media for social good? 

Bloggers should be personally engaged by an organization. I've been busy with clients the past few weeks and hadn't kept up with my Mashable or (RED) news feed. I found out about Social Good Day this morning and had to react fast. How did I find out about Social Good Day? I recieved a tweeted direct message from (RED) asking for my support. The tweet was personal in that it mentioned my support from the year before and linked to a blog post that reference my campaign last year. 

This wasn't the first time (RED) had engaged with personally. The first Social Good Day last year, the organization retweeted and @replied me, making a point to show appreciation for my effort. This morning, I was not at all prepared to do a blog post about Social Good Day, but the personal engagment inspired me to make it happen. Had I not had a personal engagement with (RED), I wouldn't have gone to that kind of trouble.

Every blogger has an influence. Don't limit engagement to the blog stars. My Greater Good Life blog has nothing on the Huffington Post or Care2, but (RED) didn't overlook me! Often times, social good campaigns are quick to point out that even the smallest donation can make a big difference, yet they don't abide by their own "every little bit counts" philosophy when it comes to engagement. As a blogger, I've never been pitched by a nonprofit (other than (RED)) to write a post about their efforts, though I'd be happy to do it! If my local SPCA did a simple blog search on Google, I'm sure they would see I've posted about dogs. If my local food pantry did the same, they'd see I've posted about world hunger. If these organizations that have causes relevant to my blog invite me to their organization for a tour or suggest a good story, I'd be happy to support their cause. Organizations just have to ask in a way that is not a pitch, but a collaboration. 

An organization should use social media to show they care about their supporters as much as their cause. I've given money to a lot of organizations that resulted in repeated, tree-killing impersonal direct mail being stuffed into my mailbox. These organizations care a great deal about their causes, but they don't seem to care about me as a supporter. I'm a number, a dollar figure to them, not a person. Social media allows organizations to truly interact with supporters and build a relationship with them. Supporters can offer an organization much more than money, they can offer word-of-mouth and inspiration to others. 

There is a lot of distraction in the social media space, so consistency is key. Facebook's major redesign dominated the discussion online today, on both Facebook and Twitter. As much as we posted about social good, this added some clutter to our message. My campaign blog post did not get the same attention from my Facebook friends as it normally would. I think this was because so many of my friends were complaining about and trying to figure out the new Facebook changes launched today. This kind of distraction is uncontrollable in social media. We have to take into account that whatever our message, there are countless other equally important messages floating around in the space. The best way to counter this is through consistency of the message. Use of a hashtag and very simple descriptions with links keeps a message clearly communicated amongst the clutter. 

Keep the conversation going. The goal of spreading the word does not end with starting a conversation. The conversation should be continued through additional interaction. I did with my campaign so far by replying to any tweets and posts that came my way. When I have time over the next several days, I'll go back and follow and subscribe to the people I interacted with on Twitter and Facebook and send those who left comments on my blog an e-mail thanking them. (RED) does a stellar job of this. (RED) kept in touch with me after last year's campaign, and I hear from the organization personally via social media throughout the year. I maintain an interest in (RED)'s cause, even with all the distractions in the social media space, because (RED) continues to engage me.

How could the next campaign be better?

Next time, I'd spend more time. I wasn't prepared for Social Good Day, so the campaign could have been better planned and executed with a little more time. Maybe I could have found sponsors and partnered with other bloggers. Also, 12-24 hours is not long period to run a campaign. Perhaps a campaign like this should have been launched on Social Good Day and continued throughout the week.

Next time, I'd love to join forces with a large group of bloggers. I could envision a social good campaign where 50 or more bloggers join forces to make a bigger impact. A call to bloggers could be placed on the campaign's website. Bloggers can sign up and pledge to post and donate a specific amount. There could be a page that showcases all of the participating bloggers. There is a lot of potential to experiment with here. I hope this campaign offers a stepping stone for others to take this idea and run with it.

Next time, it would be great to include a photo or video component. Words are only one dimension of social media. Photos and videos would make this campaign more three-dimentional. An organization wishing to expand on this campaign could set up a Flickr photo pool, a YouTube channel or a Tumblr or Posterous blog to collect multimedia entries. Even with my small scaled campaign, if I had planned a little more, I would have loved creating a video for Social Good Day. I'm sure other bloggers and social media users would do the same.

So that's my analysis of a #SocialGood campaign. I'm always happy to share my ideas with worthwhile organizations that need help brainstorming strategic efforts. Please contact me if you decide to run a campaign like this one and would like more thoughts. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go donate $100.

10 basics of shameless online self promotion

This Thursday night, I’ll be presenting on a panel about “Shameless Self Promotion” for the Hampton Roads chapter of AIGA. I’ll be talking about using social media for self promotion. Fitting, since I initially met the current president of AIGA, Mara Lubell, because she found my blog and contacted me. When she moved to the area a few years ago, she was looking for professionals to connect with and stumbled across my blog about social media and public relations. She explained in an e-mail via my contact form on the blog that we had a lot in common professionally. We met for dinner to discuss work, and it’s turned into a rewarding professional relationship, as well as an awesome friendship. That’s how it works when you follow these guidelines for online self promotion.

1. Be genuine. Your goal for networking online should always be to create meaningful relationships. Social media is about building relationships through many-to-many communication. So if you are simply trying to talk about yourself and make a sales pitch, you won’t get very far. You should be interested in helping others as much, if not more, than helping yourself. That level of authenticity is rewarded through social media.
2. Have something to share. Think about what you know well and how you can make that information unique to an online audience. No matter the topic, it’s guaranteed that thousands of other people are online posting about the very same topic. It’s not enough to post about what you know, you have to make it personal. For example, when I first started blogging about social media and public relations, I took the approach of blogging about the research I was doing for my master’s degree. As I researched and learned more about online communications, I shared my findings with others. The key to creating unique content is to incorporate your personal experiences.
3. Start blogging and posting. I realize not everyone is a writer. But it’s true, the best way to be found online (via search engines) is to blog lots of written content. If you can find something you are passionate about and write about it easily, get motivated and start cranking out the posts. The more content you write, the more people will find you. At the same time, don’t force a blog. If you loathe writing and just don’t feel like you can write compelling blog posts, do not start a blog. if you are not interested, no one else will be either. You can always post content in other formats: tweets, photos, video, animation, audio, streaming.  
4. Target your messages. Limit all of your online posts to 2-3 topics you really want to specialize in and avoid posting about content that doesn’t fit the bill. You may find other topics interesting, but if your audience is reading your blog and twitter posts for graphic design tips and you get off tangent by frequently posting about family, tv or cooking, it will seem distracting. For example, on Twitter, I try to keep my tweets focused on the topics covered in my two blogs (one blog is about social media PR and the other is about social good). Therefore, I try to tweet proportionately: 45 percent of my tweets about social media PR, 45 percent social good and only 10 percent random (new music, movies, experiences). It’s okay to have some random posts (that’s what gives you personality online). Just don’t go overboard and stay focused on your main messages.
5. Find where your new friends are. Social media goes well beyond blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Think about who you want to reach and where you might find them. Are there online communities specifically for that group? Search online for blogs, online communities and discussion forums related to your topics of interest. Then, participate in the communities and start learning why your target audience is online. This will help you figure out where your new friends might be hanging out online as well as what you could post that they would find interesting. For example, I find that Planet Green offers a great online community for topics related to my social good blog.
6. Make friends and build solid relationships. It’s time to be outgoing, which is a lot easier to do online than in person. First, get to know your new friends online. Read their blog posts and Twitter feeds and find out what they are interested in. Make friends by offering advice and helpful information, sharing links and starting up conversations by leaving comments and sending them @ replies. Don’t expect to form a relationship with an online stranger overnight. It takes time to build genuine online friendships. Simply stay tuned in to what interesting people are saying online and start from there.
7. Interact. As much as you might want to promote yourself, a genuine relationship is two-way. Learn from your new friends online and start by listening to what they have to say. Then, interact with them rather than talk about yourself. Comment on their posts and send @replies to respond to their tweets and offer helpful links and tips. Chances are if you have something in common, you will enjoy networking with each other.  I recently learned from Scott Stratten’s Blogworld keynote that the majority (about 70 percent) of your tweets should be @replies. Of course, once you are interacting, it's okay to send a promotional tweet for your yourself every once in a while.
8. Help people. You’ve heard the saying that it’s better to give than to receive. It’s true in social media. Giving will come back around. So, share your best ideas, pass job postings on to your followers, and help your online friends spread their messages. Over time, they’ll help you spread your messages, too.
9. Promote others. This goes along with helping people. How do you promote others? Well, look at how I just promoted Scott Stratten in #7 or Mara Lubell in the introduction of this piece. Share links to other people’s interesting content and retweet or repost their content. What goes around does eventually come around and you’ll find they may return the favor.
10. Brand yourself. Make sure your blog and social media sites show up in the search engine results for your name and/or the name of your business. This may not be easy if you have a common name, but it’s important. There are many other “Michelle Rogerson’s” mentioned online, but the majority of results for my name are links to my own content. While you can’t control search engine results, the more content you post, the more you are likely to show up for the keywords that describe you. Be consistent on every social media site and use the same name or keywords to brand yourself. If possible, pick one username and use it across the board for all social media sites. Buy the URL for your name as well. If you don’t have a blog or website, you can always use the URL as a landing page for your online presence. Here is a great landing page example, from a colleague, Holly Hoffman, who I met via Twitter and eventually in person at Blogworld back in October.

Making friends and networking online can be extremely valuable and rewarding. I have received many job opportunities and referrals for prospective clients and been offered wonderful speaking opportunities because of the self promotion I have done using my blogs, Twitter, Tumblr, Yelp, Facebook, LinkedIn and other tools. However, these benefits were not my first intention for becoming involved in social media. My first intention when I started communicating online was helping people by sharing my unique perspective with others and helping myself by learning from and interacting with people with similar interests. Start with that intention, and you’ll reap many rewards, including the benefits of self promotion.



Why your organization needs a social media policy

Reina Communications was featured in this week's Inside Business! If you didn't catch the article, "Social media can get you fired," you can find it online. The article offers several suggestions from Reina Communications for creating employee social media policies. Some snippets from the interview:

"A company cannot control the conversation taking place through social media. It's a good idea to have a social media policy in place so that your employees as well as the company's reputation are protected."

"Never identify yourself or the company you work for in a way that could be construed that you are a spokesperson for the organization, unless you're designated as one."

"Employees who have personal blogs or profiles on social media sites that reflect personal opinions should not identify their employer or discuss their work. An employee should not update their personal Twitter account with a complaint about a new policy at work. That also underscores common sense and judgment."

"It's also helpful to have employees from across various departments represent the company online. It gives the company more online presence and offers transparency by allowing actual employees to be the face of the company, rather than controlling everything through the public relations department."

If you are considering an organizational social media policy, here are some additional tips:

• Find some sample policies from other companies willing to share and use that as a starting point.


• Form a committee to get input from different employees who are active online.


• Have a plan to communicate the social media policy to employees.


• Offer employees hypothetical scenarios so they can discuss the social media policies and practice making decisions.

If you need more help creating an employee social media policy, you know where to find us.

Twittles: Taste the social marketing rainbow

I'm loving the new Skittles Web site. Launched last week, it's simply a rotating look at the live Skittles entries on social media sites, such as Flickr, Wikipedia and Twitter. It certainly generated a lot of buzz for Skittles in the last week on Twitter. With a completely user-generated website, Skittles gets kudos for learning how to relinquish control.